#5: Making your cryonics arrangements official

post by mingyuan · 2021-02-02T23:54:27.534Z · LW · GW · 1 comments

Contents

  Required paperwork
    Alcor
      Membership application
      Cryopreservation contracts
    Cryonics Institute
      Membership application
      Cryopreservation contracts
  Congratulations!
  Ongoing maintenance
None
1 comment

This is post 9 of 10 in my cryonics signup sequence [? · GW].

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Once you've got your funding method set up, you're not quite done. You'll need to enter into an official cryopreservation agreement with your cryonics organization, and there are quite a few additional forms you have to fill out in order to make that happen.

Required paperwork

Alcor

Membership application

Fill out the Alcor membership application available here. The application fee is $300; the default is to pay by card, but you can contact Alcor if you want to use a different payment method.

Cryopreservation contracts

Once you've sent in your membership application, complete with funding method, Alcor will physically mail you the cryopreservation contracts to read and sign. This runs ~60 pages, but it should mostly be information you already know. 

You'll need two non-relative witnesses to sign the various documents, and in all states except California, you'll need a notary to notarize your Last Will and Testament for Human Remains.

The packet sent to you by Alcor includes the following [1]:

• Cryopreservation Agreement
• Attachment 1 to Cryopreservation Agreement
  • This document formalizes the choices you select on your membership application (e.g. neuropreservation vs whole-body; what to do with any excess funding)
• Consent for Cryopreservation
• Last Will and Testament for Human Remains and Authorization of Anatomical Donation

Note that hyperlinks in this section link only to sample forms, not contracts that you should actually try to sign.

Cryonics Institute

Membership application

There are two different forms depending on whether you're applying for an annual membership or a lifetime membership. The application fee for the former is $75; there is no application fee for lifetime membership, but there's a one-time payment of $1250.

Cryopreservation contracts

These are just all the basic legal documents you need; I think CI will send these to you when appropriate. You will need the signature of a notary or the signatures of two witnesses.

Main forms to fill out:

• Cryonic Suspension Agreement
• Uniform Donor Form
• Next of Kin Agreement
• Consent/Release for Cryopreservation
• Non-Suspension Rider
  • This document stipulates what should be done with your cryopreservation funding in the case that CI is unable to carry out your cryopreservation

You may also want or need to fill out the following, depending on your situation:

• Local Help Rider
  • Stipulates that any funding provided beyond the minimum will be used by CI to pay for the costs of the member's funeral director and shipping
• Yearly Membership Rider
  • Agreement that Yearly Members must pay their dues in full in a timely manner or their Cryonic Suspension Agreement will be void
• Foreign Funds Rider
  • An attempt to ensure that funding for cryopreservation that is not denominated in US Dollars does not fall below the allotted minimums because of fluctuations in exchange rates

Again, hyperlinks in this section link only to sample forms, not contracts that you should actually try to sign.

Congratulations!

Once you've done all that paperwork and are officially signed up, your cryonics provider will send you a membership packet containing a medical necklace and a medical bracelet. You should wear these at all times in case you're ever in a fatal accident; paramedics know to check for medical bracelets, and the tags inform them of how to treat your body until a standby team arrives.

If you live outside of the US or regularly travel internationally, ask your cryonics organization to send you tags that have a phone number with the American country code prefix on it.

Ongoing maintenance

In order to actually get cryopreserved when it counts, you'll need to keep your cryonics organization updated on any major changes, and keep abreast of updates on their end as well. Here's a brief sample of what ongoing maintenance means:

• Any time you move, let your cryonics organization know what your new address is.
• Alcor no longer grandfathers its members into the price at their time of signup, so if preservation costs increase, you'll need to make sure you're still funding at an adequate level.
• If you've executed advance directives [? · GW], review them regularly to make sure that they still express your wishes accurately.
• Let your cryonics organization know right away if you develop a potentially fatal condition.
• If you're funding with a non-guaranteed life insurance policy, check its performance every ~5 years to make sure that it's on track to cover your preservation costs.

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[1] A previous version of this post also listed Emergency Standby Provisions + Attachment 1 and Alcor's Buy-Back Agreement here. However, upon receiving my packet I found that these were not included or mentioned anywhere, so I'm assuming they're outdated.

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